Make a Good Impression in Writing Online

Today we're going to talk about the written equivalent of voice tone and body language: the nonverbal parts of written word.

Here in the 21st century, we’re all on display, all the time. When you start a new job, within moments your bosses and co-workers have Googled you, Binged you, Facebooked you, LinkedIned you, and Instagramed you. They’ve read what you’ve written. They’ve seen your poetry blog. Which means that all of it—every single bit—will factor into how they perceive you.

Oh, joy.

Content and form are different

The online world is dangerous and scary if we say the wrong things.

You declare “i love rhubarb cupcake” All lower case. No punctuation. Within 7 hours, the Rhubarb People’s Collective is organizing a letter writing campaign to get you declared a rhubarb-terrorist who commits the unpardonable sin of transforming this most delicious of plants into lowly cupcakes. That’s because they didn’t like the content of your message. Content is the actual words and information in your post.

Form is how you convey your content. It’s the writing equivalent of voice tone, body language, and other nonverbal communication. 

Form makes an unconscious impression

How you express your ideas matters.

When people read your writing, they’ll respond consciously to your content. “Ban the evil-rhubarb defiler who desecrates all rhubarb by making it into lowly cupcakes!” 

When people read your writing, they’ll respond consciously to your content. Unconsciously, however, they’ll respond to the form.

Unconsciously, however, they’ll respond to the form. “Wow, that rhubarb loser didn’t capitalize or use punctation. We must shame this incompetent doofus publicly!“

This is a dreadful reaction! The only thing worse than being harassed by the People’s Rhubarb Collective is being harassed and not even having the dignity of being taken seriously by the Collective. 

With the rise of social media and texting, we’ve been going through different conventions for different media. You write in one style when texting, and another when writing longer form messages. But for the most part, the unconscious cues haven’t changed. If you want to manage your public reputation, personal brand, online presence, or whatever you call it when your boss looks at your Insta and judges you based on what they find, play it safe—manage the...

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